


milk and honey

by dollylux



Series: Fic Advent Calendar 2015: Siblings, Husbands, Lovely Ladies, and Other Miscreants [6]
Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Breastfeeding, Codependency, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 08:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5367656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollylux/pseuds/dollylux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both learned to ignore the cold long ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	milk and honey

**Author's Note:**

> day six | prompt: candlelight
> 
> i did not expect this to be so short, but i also didn't expect to love it as much as i do.

She only wore white after their son was born.

She’d thrown out the bedding she’d lain on and the gown she’d been wearing when she gave birth, tossed it into late autumn fire out on the flat bleak stretch of dead grass behind the house, the bonfire into which they threw everything they didn’t want the world to find. She’d tossed the bloodied fabric in and hurried back into the house, to the baby.

Thomas turns from the window to gaze at her in the failing light where she’s holding little Benjamin. Her gown is transparent, like a white haze over her pale body, her breasts swollen with milk, nipples hard points that darken the fabric, even from across the room. She wears her hair down now, more important things to attend to, and Thomas brushes and plaits it for her every morning, pets her like the doll she is to him, like the precious, painful, only light in his dark.

He goes about the room, lighting candles while she tugs her gown down and guides baby Ben to her breast. Neither of them speak about the baby’s rasping breath, about his weak coughs.

The attic is freezing, snow falling from the center of the house and straight through to the parlor where it collects in a wispy, delicate pile of white. The heat from the fire downstairs has never reached up here, and they’ve nearly run out of kindling, besides.

They both learned to ignore the cold long ago. Little Benjamin will have to do the same, if he is to survive here.

Thomas settles in beside her on the bed now that the room is lit for the evening, the collective golden light from the candles casting a warm glow on Lucille’s skin, turning her from Thomas’ moon to his sun in an instant.

He curls down to rest his cheek against her shoulder, drawing the covers up higher on their bodies while the baby feeds. Lucille’s hair is spread out across the pillows, and Thomas brings it round to drape over his shoulders, warming the back of his neck like a scarf. He closes his eyes and sighs before falling quiet, listening to the sounds of the baby drinking at her breast.

“I’m hungry, Lucille,” he whispers against her cold skin.

“Come, dearest,” she murmurs, her fingers light as wings on his cheek as she draws him in closer, guiding him down while Thomas tugs the rest of her gown low, exposing the other breast. Thomas licks his lips before turning at her side, curled up and nearly in her lap as he opens his mouth, eyes still closed, blind and trusting as a baby bird. He draws her nipple into his mouth and lets out a contented, quiet whimper when he starts to suck, sweet, pale milk trickling across his tongue and slipping down his throat, nourishing him.

“That’s it, darling boy,” Lucille sighs, her skin warming the more he suckles, heating them both. Her fingers card through his hair, the scars and callouses on them catching in his dark curls. They melt together and against the bed. “Drink from me.”

He can hear Enola somewhere downstairs, wheeling herself down a freezing hallway, perhaps trying to escape. She won’t get anywhere, not with the snowstorm outside, as deadly as anything in Allerdale Hall.

When Enola starts to cry, the sound echoing up through the open floor and into their sanctuary, Lucille begins to hum, the quiet curve of her mouth pressed to Thomas’ temple in an unending kiss.


End file.
